Monday, January 28, 1986. Although it was more than 37 years ago, I remember the day clearly. We were still living in the Chicago area then, and I was five months into my new career as a stay-at-home mom. It was the day after our beloved Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl, and I was still in a festive mood, with the television tuned to all the celebrations going on in Chicago. It was an historic day for another reason, too, although not the way [...]
It’s pouring rain as I’m writing this, although the weather may be sunny and dry by the time you read it – or even by the time I finish writing. But it’s been cloudy and gloomy since early this morning, and our weather forecast says it’s going to be that way all day – not that I go by the forecast when I’m planning my day. Still, I like it when I can stay home on rainy days, and not just because it keeps me [...]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of looking ahead toward tomorrow, rather than back at yesterday. But now I’m reminded of how pleasant it can be to look back, too. On Saturday, my husband and I attended the 2023 Putnam County Dairy Festival. It’s a big-deal annual event in the town where we live, although this is the first time in the six years we’ve lived here that we’ve gone. In our defense, we’ve been out of town during some of the [...]
A new bar & grill opened up near us recently, and they hold trivia contests on Wednesday nights. Along with a few friends from our neighborhood, we’ve gone a few times, and even won first place once. We went last week, and although they don’t officially have themes for the games, a number of the questions had to do with Memorial Day. I learned a few things about Memorial Day that I didn’t know, and was reminded about some that I’d forgotten. In honor of [...]
It was in the middle of a recent writers workshop that a line from a Rolling Stones song popped into my mind. The line, and the song, is “You can’t always get what you want.” This happened as the workshop leader was talking about some of the nuts and bolts of writing a novel. While describing the development of character and plot, he said that the main character – and there should almost always be just one main character – must have a want and [...]
There were a few days in a row last week when I didn’t have any meetings or appointments, which is a fairly rare occurrence. Plus, we had several workers coming to the house to do repairs or give us service estimates, so we needed to stay close to home. It seemed like the perfect time to bake some sourdough bread. Although bread-baking – especially sourdough – got really popular during the COVID lockdown in 2020, I didn’t get into it until later, after I read [...]
I can still remember my grandma and grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary. A special blessing at Mass was followed by a big reception in the church hall, which was filled with family, friends, and neighbors. I remember the yellow dress I wore that day, and the lovely dress, corsage, and smile my grandma wore. But that may be as much from photos as from memory. My mom died at age 42, long before she and my dad would have had a similar celebration, but I have [...]
I had a blog post written and almost ready to go last week. But before I could polish and post it, I had to take a slight detour, via ambulance, ending up in the hospital with internal bleeding caused by several small ulcers I didn’t know I had. After a few scary and painful days in the hospital, I’m home now, recovering and starting to feel like myself again. As always, after something bad happens in my life, I try to look for the good [...]
I had a doctor’s appointment Friday afternoon, and it was starting to rain just as I was leaving the doctor’s office. I looked at the time as I got in my car. It was a little after 2:00. This immediately took me back to when I was young, and we spent a fair amount of time in church during the Easter Triduum – the period of time between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday. The hours between noon and 3 o’clock on Good Friday were especially [...]